© 1996 Richard Mudhar

You're unlikely to get Stonehenge to yourself - even on cold and wet winter's day English Heritage reckon on getting a hundred or so visitors; on a fine summer's day several thousand will come to admire it. Many years ago, one could wander among the stones but now there are so many visitors the site is roped off - however English Heritage have done their best to arrange that walkway so you can get a good view of the stones from all around. One advantage is that other visitors don't get in the way of your photos :-)

Coming over the brow of the hill after the Amesbury roundabout (if you're coming from London) you see Stonehenge in the fork of two roads - from a distance it does not look all that big since there are no trees around to give a sense of scale. Turning off into Stonehenge car park, this is the beginning of the tour. There's no two ways about it, Stonehenge car park isn't good, a sixties concrete monstrosity which is far too close to Stonehenge. However, they have tried to improve it a bit in recent years, and it isn't _too_ visible from the stones...

After paying £2.90 you can go through a subway to the other side of the road where the stones are. The path takes you round the stones in an anticlockwise direction.

view from the north-west (1)

You approach from the north-west, where the sarsen circle is least complete, then travel round the circle. The path takes you first inside the henge (the raised bank surrounding the stones), then out, giving you a clear view from the west into the inner structure of the monument.

Stonehenge from the west

From the south-east the sarsen circle looks more complete (2)

view from the south-east (3)

The path is moved periodically, to allow the effect of erosion from the countless visitors to be spread out, but until recently it ended at the north-east of the circle, from vhich a fine view of the Heel stone can be seen. This is the outlying stone above which the midsummer sun rises when viewed from the centre of Stonehenge. One can actually get much closer to it from the road, and this is probably the excuse used by the sad folk who gather on the roadside to see Stonehenge without paying :-)

The reason the path did not go all round the monument is that many important archaeological features are buried in the north-eastern part of the circle. From the circle to the Heel stone and beyond a bank and ditch pathway caled the Avenue runs, which holds many features. There are post-holes which may have formed sighting points for astronomical alignments, and other artifacts. However, in 1996 a low bridge has been built to carry the pathway over ths area.

view from the north (5)

A lot can be seen from the pathway, hoever, the original designers of Stonehenge did intend it to be viewed from within. The Heel stone is framed in the sarsens of the outer circle, and may have served as an alignment to other astronomical features.

The Heel stone, viewed from inside the circle (A)

And viewed from a distance some of the sheer scale of the stones is lost - from inside the power of seeing the sun through stones sixteen feet high is rather more impressive...

A trilithon viewed up close (B)

The location from which the pictures were taken is shown on this plan of the stones showing the path - it is given in brackets after the picture description.